CHIDREN can travel for free this weekend (May 16 and 17) along the Kildare-Heuston route in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Kildare Commuter Rail Service.
There will be free car parking also at Iarnród Eireann car parks on route to mark the occasion.
The rail service, then known as the ‘Arrow’, began operating on May 16 1994, a date that also marked the reopening of Sallins, Hazelhatch and Clondalkin stations along with the opening of a new station at Cherry Orchard.
Further enhancements are planned for the future of the local commuter service. The DART Expansion programme envisages the expansion of the DART to Hazelhatch, giving a direct service from Hazelhatch to the city centre via the DART Underground line (with stations at Inchicore, Heuston, Christchurch, St Stephen’s Green, Pearse and Spencer Dock), and onwards to the existing DART line servicing the northside of Dublin.
It is expected that the Government will make a decision in 2015 on including the DART expansion in the next national capital investment programme.
Over the past 20 years, numbers using the commuter service have increased from an initial 500,000 passenger journeys annually to just fewer than two million journeys in 2013.
In total, an estimated 25 million people have commuted on the Kildare/Heuston route since the Commuter service was launched in 1994.
To avail of the free trip children must be accompanied by an adult and free car parking is at Kildare, Newbridge, Sallins and Hazelhatch.
